The Darwinian dynamic feels especially acute for business. Millions of companies and jobs will be wiped away, with mainly the strong — or well connected — able to hang on.

Those companies with strong connections and lobbyists will get bailouts to stay alive.

Those smaller businesses with good connections to banks will be first in line for government money to stay afloat.

Those with strong balance sheets — and not inflated paper value or hype — will thrive and attract more emergency capital from investors.

Those mom and pop shops with good local businesses but thin margins will struggle mightily and many will go under without substantial aid delivered quickly. The hourly workers who make them possible will suffer, too.